Influence of oil conditioning on the permeate flux and cake properties during microfiltration of lampante olive oil

Abstract

This work studies the deacidification of lampante virgin olive oil (acidity ranging from 2.15-4.65%) by microfiltration through alumina membrane. The effects of (i) the amount of absorbed water during the neutralization of the free fatty acids with various NaOH concentrations, and (ii) the acid pre-treatment with phosphoric acid on permeate fluxes during microfiltration were studied. Physical properties of the cake (specific resistance and compressibility) were also investigated. The soap molecules are known to self assemble and form multilamellar vesicles with hundreds of bilayers entrapping water molecules between the polar groups. Swelling and deformability of such structures must be influenced by the amount of solubilized water. Our results show for all tested oils that a dilute NaOH solution (20%) allows the highest flux through the membrane, i.e. about 3-fold the flux resulting from 40%-NaOH treatment. The improvement of the initial fluxes reached approximately 300% in comparison with those obtained with more concentrated NaOH solutions, whereas the use of a more diluted solution (10% NaOH) caused a loss of separation efficiency. The addition of 0.1% (wt/wt) of phosphoric acid prior to neutralization results in further flux improvement especially at the beginning of filtration. The initial fluxes doubled when passing from 0-0.05% H 3 PO 4 and then, in case of 20% NaOH to 0.1%. The average cake-specific resistance was the highest in the case of neutralization with 30% NaOH and the lowest when coupling 0.1% H 3 PO 4 pre-treatment with 20% NaOH neutralization. In the latter case the cake showed a highly compressible behavior.

PES and PES/PAN Blend Ultrafiltration Hollow Fiber Membranes for Oily Wastewater Treatment: Preparation, Experimental Investigation, Fouling, and Modeling

“…Table VI presents characteristics of the permeate regarding turbidity, OGC, TOC, and TSS after treatment of the oily wastewater for 4.5 h. It can be observed that TOC in the permeates of M1, M2, M3, and M4 hollow fiber membranes is 1.8, 0.4, 0.2, and 0.2 mg/L, respectively. As expected, the rejection of M3 (PES/PAN; 75/25 wt%) membrane is 35 , and Jegatheesan et al 36 for more details), and thus the process can meet the environmental standards related to discharged materials.…”

“…For the all measurements, the M3 (PES/PAN; 75/25 wt%) membrane exhibited better performance than M1 and M2 hollow fiber membranes. The PES/PAN (75/25 wt%) blend hollow fiber membranes were found practically suitable for the treatment of industrial oily wastewater with rejection of OGC at the level of 0.2 mg/L (99.7%), resulting in the permeate with OGC below 5 mg/L (see Salahi et al, Hafidi et al, and Jegatheesan et al for more details), and thus the process can meet the environmental standards related to discharged materials.…”

Experimental Study and Modeling of Ultrafiltration of Refinery Effluents Using a Hybrid Intelligent Approach

“…Treatment of this kind of wastewater requires reliable purification systems to meet environmental discharge standards (oil content < 5 ppm) . Membrane-based separation processes, particularly microfiltration (MF) and UF processes, are proving to be promising alternatives for conventional industrial separation methods, due to their numerous advantages such as high selectivity, easy separation, mild operation, continuous and automatic operation, no need for extraneous chemicals, high-purity products, much lower environmental impact, and economical and fast operation, as well as relatively low capital and running investment. − According to previous studies, − high volumes of domestic, industrial, oil-in-water, and oily wastewaters were treated with MF and UF processes to exceptionally high-quality standards, usually for reuse purposes.…”

Removal of Coke Particles from Oil Contaminated Marun Petrochemical Wastewater Using PVDF Microfiltration Membrane

“…Membrane based separation processes are becoming a promising technology. This technology has several advantages including high selectivity, easy separation, mild operation, small area requirement, continuous and automatic operation, economic and fast operation, and low running investment. − Previous studies showed that microfiltration (MF) processes are compatible with environmental standards. − However, membrane fouling that typically forms by inorganic and organic materials existence in the oily wastewaters is the major problem in using membranes for oily wastewater treatment. , …”